


Dreams Like Poison

by kiyala



Category: Gentleman Bastard Sequence - Scott Lynch
Genre: Community: 500themes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-27
Updated: 2010-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-12 02:22:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiyala/pseuds/kiyala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locke and Jean consider the situation they've found themselves in (set after Red Seas Under Red Skies).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams Like Poison

**Author's Note:**

> Contains MASSIVE spoilers for _Red Seas Under Red Skies_. Please, please don't read this unless you've finished the book.
> 
>  
> 
> This is written as part of the [500themes](http://communities.livejournal.com/500themes) challenge, using prompt #28 - electrifying sacrifice

  
He thinks about it sometimes.

No.

He thinks about it a lot. On nights where he is bone-tired and can feel the boat rocking gently beneath him, coaxing him to sleep. Nights when he thinks too much, feels too much, that it compounds his tiredness, making him feel drained.

Still, sleep does not come. Locke is fast asleep, the cat curled up on his chest, and Jean lies wide awake in the dark, thinking about the poison that is no longer threatening his life. The poison that will, someday, take from him the one person that continues to make all this shit worthwhile.

Locke grunts a little in his sleep and Jean nearly sits up. He listens closely to his friend's breathing and lets out a long sigh of relief. Locke is still breathing, as if there is no poison lying dormant in his body, waiting to take his life, and Jean allows himself the briefest hopeful thought that perhaps this poison was just bullshit all along.

Some nights, he dreams of Locke's death. The scene is exactly how he remembers the last moments of Caldris's life, except this time, instead of the old man, there is Locke, and Jean Estevan Tannen can do nothing but simply watch his best friend in the entire world simply _die_.

He wakes from these dreams with a gasp loud enough to wake Locke from his own sleep, the instincts of a Catchfire orphan making him alert to the quietest indication of possible danger.

"Locke?" Jean whispers.

"Ugh, get your nose out of my face, kid," Locke mutters. "Yeah. Jean. Right here. Another dream about Ezri?"

Jean lets out a long sigh. "Yeah. Sorry for waking you."

"Don't apologise." An indignant mewl says that Locke has unceremoniously pushed Regal out of his face. "We've got a few more hours to sleep."

With that, Locke is asleep again and Jean is left wide awake. He dreams of Ezri, too. He thinks of her in his waking hours, just as often as he worries about Locke. And if Locke sometimes thinks that the look on Jean's face is about her when it is in fact about him… well, Jean doesn't see the need to correct him when he knows it will just lead to another argument. One that Jean has already lost.

*

  
Locke Lamora is no fool. This is a fact that Jean seems to have temporarily forgotten.

They need their space, now and then. Jean takes the stern, Locke the bow. He lies there in the sun now, the cat dozing in the warmth and Locke tempted to do the same. There's a clarity to his thoughts in the moments before he falls asleep, when his mind is too tired to filter out the junk and he is most honest with himself.

 _Before I die_ , he thinks drowsily, _I'll have to get the hell away from Jean_.

He thinks about it often, wondering if he'll know once his time is up. He knows that even though the selfish part of him wants to stay with Jean until the very end, he doesn't want to make Jean see another of his close friends die right in front of him.

He hears Jean mumble through nightmares, now and again. There are times when he mumbles things like _no, no, please, Ezri, no_ , and it's obvious enough what he's seeing in his dreams. Equally obvious are the times when he's swearing enough in his sleep to make the most seasoned pirate blush, punctuated now and then by _you stupid fucking idiot_ , and Locke knows it's about him.

Regal rolls onto his side, stretching and purring contentedly as he falls asleep. Locke decides to follow suit.

He's woken later by Jean shaking him. "Locke? Locke!"

Blinking his eyes open, he grins half-heartedly. "Not dead yet."

The relief's only there for a fraction of a second before Jean blinks, but Locke catches it anyway. He wonders, at the back of his mind, if the prospect of Locke's death is constantly wearing away at Jean to the point where he'll feel _relieved_ once it actually happens.

Locke hates himself for even having the thought. He imagines their roles being reversed and hates himself even more.

This isn't a sacrifice for Jean, he thinks to himself sometimes. It's just his own means of escape. He's already lost Chains. Calo and Galdo. Bug. …Even Sabetha. Sure, maybe Jeans lost them all too. And more. His parents. Ezri. Locke thinks of the difference being that he's responsible for losing most of the people he's actually cared about.

He's never even wanted to imagine being responsible for losing Jean, too. He'd rather die.

So he will.

x


End file.
